Court documents shine light on shooting
MOSES LAKE — Court documents indicate a Sunday shooting near Moses Lake that left one man injured stemmed from an ongoing dispute between two men.
Grant County prosecutors charged Matthew Low, 29, of Moses Lake, in Grant County Superior Court with first-degree assault (firearm or deadly weapon). In addition to the shooting-related charges, Low is facing additional charges of first-degree attempted robbery (armed with a deadly weapon), second-degree assault (armed with a deadly weapon) and reckless endangerment in connection with a Jan. 20 incident in Ephrata.
On Sunday the Grant County Sheriff’s Office responded to a report of a shooting in the 10700 block of Neppel Road Northeast. Deputies arrived at the scene and located 49-year-old Patrick Pearson at a residence in the area. Pearson had been shot and was taken to Samaritan Hospital for treatment.
Pearson told a GCSO detective that he and a woman were dropped off on Road 10.2 Northeast and they started walking down a driveway on Neppel Road Northeast. Pearson said he saw a black Jeep parked at a gate that crosses the driveway and at some point a white pickup started driving toward him and the woman.
He said the Jeep started backing up and the pickup passed him and continued down the driveway for a short distance. The Jeep, Pearson claimed, stopped and the pickup pulled alongside the Jeep and shots were fired, resulting in him getting hit by a bullet in the left arm. Deputies were able to make contact with a woman who admitted to giving Low a ride from where he abandoned the white pickup to a location in the McConihe Flats area.
The woman Pearson was with told deputies she and Pearson were driving to a location on Neppel Road in a black Jeep. She said when they arrived in the area they saw a white pickup truck, a small black car and Low walking around. When Pearson saw Low he allegedly said “let’s get out of here,” due to him and Low reportedly having some sort of feud. She claimed Low jumped into his truck and started chasing them and Pearson stopped his vehicle.
The woman said she jumped out of the Jeep and heard “loud pops” coming from between the vehicles. Pearson allegedly started driving and Low is reported to have fired additional shots at Pearson while hanging out of his truck window.
Another witness reported seeing the truck and Jeep pull up next to one another, at which time between six and nine rounds are reported to have been fired. The witness went on to claim additional shots were later fired, after which he said Low was told to get off of a nearby homeowner’s property. Another witness said he told the driver of the truck to get off of his property and he also told Pearson to get off his property.
Pearson was released from custody on Sunday night, but deputies later developed probable cause for his arrest and he and the woman he was with during the shooting were taken into custody on Monday by U.S. Marshals. Pearson refused to speak with police, but the woman who was at the shooting changed her story and admitted that Pearson had a handgun with him while they were in the Jeep. She gave a GCSO detective a detailed location of where Pearson hid the gun, which was corroborated when the weapon, a .40 caliber pistol, was found where she said it was hidden.
Low was taken into custody by U.S. Marshals at a home in Cheney on Tuesday. As of the Columbia Basin Herald’s press time on Wednesday charges had not been filed against Pearson.
Richard Byrd can be reached via email at city@columbiabasinherald.com.